Patrick Jane's Christmas Carol
by Little-Firestar84
Summary: Patrick Jane hates Christmas, and he probably has all the right reasons to. But when he hurts Lisbon, 4 ghosts will come to visit him to save his soul and the future of the ones close to him. Based on A Christmas Carol, Jisbon complete!
1. Prologue

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Mega, super, ultra Author's note...: I have the evil that men do on hiatus since this summer,I'm well aware of that. And I'm terribly late with the translation of my fanfics from English into Italian (I still have to understand how is possible that I think and write in English, and I'm pretty unable to make my stories made sense into Italian. Mah.), and I'm even terribly late in writing Blackdragon, if you know what I'm talking about...

And I know it's almost a month untill Christmas, but when the end of Novembers arrives, I start doing two things: thinking what I'll get to my mum for her birthday on december the 5th (I took her present yesterday, in case you wonder- a small bell with a Christams theme. she collects them, the bells, not the ones with the Christmas theme...) and I start thinking about Christmas. and Thinking about Chrstmas, I think about my fav Chrstmas book, a Christmas Carol. I red it once a year since...well, a lifetime, and few years ago I started reading it into its original version in English- I think it's also because both "Mills & Boon" and the Italian publisher Harmony, in November, already publish Romance novels with the Christmas theme. [ND:YES! NOW you've discovered my most precious and terrible secret... sometimes, instead of Byographies or novels, I read romance novels from mills&Boon!] . there's also a good chance that I start thinking about this festivity because, in my town, on the saturday of November, the decorative lights are turned on all around town... besides, right now I'm looking outside my window, and in the space enlightened by the street lamps (it's 10 past eight pm) you can see the first snow falling from the sky...

Also, I happened to find a Christmas based story about the Mentalist the other day (yes, when I'm bored and I don't have new novels to read, I put Patrick , Teresa, Romance, all ratings into the search engine and see what I find) and I remembered a story about Alpha Flight, based on Chrismas carol, that I wrote in Italian 5 or six years ago. And I thought: I was already considering the 3 ghosts thing with the Mentalist, it's almost Christmas, let's do it in the right way! And so, here it came, this little thing... which follows almost completely the original plot., by the way. in fact, often, you'll be able to notice that just the name and few situations have been altered to fit into the Mentalist Fandom, leaving the words almsot the same (such as in the prologue)...

* * *

PROLOGUE

_Alexander Jane is dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner – his son Patrick signed it as well, many, many years before, on a Californian Christmas Eve, despite how they had parted ways and the battles of the previous years. The only reason Patrick did it, though, was to make his wife a bit content. She couldn't get what she really wanted, a life outside the lie her husband had built, and so, at least, he pretended to care about his late father. _

_Patrick knew his dad was dead before Angela told him, when someone from a morgue called them; her eyes told him everything he needed to know. Of course he did. How could it be otherwise, considering whom he was and what he pretended to do for a living?_

_Besides, there's no way they'd called someone else. Even if not close, Patrick was the only "family" Alexander Robert Jane had left. And they'd been even partners for I don't know how many years. Patrick was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole "friend", and sole mourner- even if he just pretended to, again for Angela's sake. Patrick was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain, and the mention of Alex's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. _

_There is no doubt that Alexander Jane is dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we are not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot — say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance — literally to astonish his son's weak mind._

_And, like in that tale, the spirit of a Father is going to plague the nights of his son, a son with a "weak" mind, filled by hate for himself and regrets and guilt…but, unlike Hamlet, Alexander Jane isn't looking for revenge, but for forgiveness, and to gain that, he has to make his son see the light after so many years he has spent in the darkness after his real family, the one he loved and cared for, the one he had built, has been ripped away from him…. _


	2. Act One

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

* * *

ACT ONE OR DIFFERENT VIEWS ON THE CHRISTMAS TOPIC

"Okay, people, I'm leaving, and since I don't plan on seeing you until New Year's Eve, Happy Christmas to you all!" As she leaves her office radiant, putting on her black leather jacket, Lisbon turns to look at all her team-mates, cheerfully. She has never been exactly one for mixing office and private life, but Christmas comes only once a year, and it's the only time of the year she behaves like any other normal human being, also because she has always liked the festivity – it was the only time of the year when her family behaved like any other family, and they celebrated life instead of sufferance.

So, yes, she loves Christmas, unlike someone else in the office, someone who's currently moaning his discomfort at the thought of the celebration on his couch. "Merry Christmas here, merry Christmas there… I don't see why the world is supposed to be merry; I don't see why we are supposed to be merry! Everybody's poorer and our job is to deal with murderers!"

"Murderers that we often catch, Jane, allowing people to get closure. Besides, don't you think that, considering that we have to deal with death every day we could need a break once in a while? That's what Christmas is, after all." Teresa tries her best to be positive, to make him change idea, even if she is well aware of the subtext of his words. They deal with murders every day, and even if they often catch them, the one who plagues their minds, the mind of every one of them, the one who destroyed Jane's life, is still at large.

"Bullshit" he just murmurs, hoping that she'll not hear him. Teresa Lisbon and Christmas are like the same side of the same coin, she IS the Christmas spirit made flesh; it's only when he sees her indignant expression he realizes she did hear him, and stops her before she could even think about starting her defense of the festivity "Please, Lisbon, the world is full of fools. Be merry you say? At Christmas you only find yourself poorer, and you get to work extra hours because there's an escalation of homicides and suicides, and in few days time, you are a year older and nothing changed in your life!" she makes a face, not sure how to see this. Of course, with the New Year approaching, they're not any closer to catching Red John, but there's also a more personal meaning, at least for Lisbon. With New Year approaching, she'll be a year older, and nothing has changed in her life. She's still not having a family of her own, she sis till single, no husband, boyfriend or kids, just few friends, and too much responsibility.

_And my unrequited feelings for Patrick Jane are still here. Another year passed, and I haven't been able to move on past my love for him, even if I know that he doesn't love me back, even if I know that there's nothing I can do to change his mind about his quest for revenge, even if I like to think otherwise…_

"You know, I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were the same, and not another race, someone… lesser. So, yes Jane, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good, ergo, Merry Christmas, Mr. Jane!"

Jane emits a sound that seems like a grunt, as he leaves his spot on the couch and Joins Lisbon where she stands in front of him, with hands on her hips, he claps his hands, making fun of her, and, even if he is the one saying that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, it's with the voice full of sarcasm that he talks. "My compliments, Lisbon, you managed to convince me that Christmas is the happiest time of the year and everyone has reasons to be merry. I wonder why you never thought about a political carrier, really, you'll be the first female president if you just try, I'm sure of it!"

"C'mon Jane, don't be mean and just come to dinner to me tomorrow. Come to celebrate with me and my brothers. Apparently, James doesn't believe you're the pain I told them you are, and they want to see it for real. Please?"

"Mmmmm, let me think about it…no! – and saying so, he leaves in direction of the stairs, with Lisbon just standing still and sad where they just spoke – Good evening, Lisbon!"

"Jane, c'mon, I'm not asking you to change your mind about Christmas, just, for once, could you try to behave like we are actually _friends?_ It's all I'm asking you!" She shouts at his back, while he is already moving. "Besides, I know you are going to spend Christmas on your own!"

"As I said, Lisboan, good evening, see you in few days!" And with that, he leaves, and even if he doesn't see her tears, it doesn't mean he isn't aware of the fact that she is crying, because of him, like often, like always.

But they are not friends, they've never been. She has been a mean to an end, at the beginning, but the more he stayed at her side (and the more she stayed at his side), the more things changed.

Teresa Lisbon isn't his friend. Teresa Lisbon isn't a mean to an end. Teresa Lisbon is the only reason he still wakes up in the morning, the only reason he still breathes, he hasn't committed suicide yet, she is the light in his darkness – and he knows that his feelings for her are reciprocated. He has known she was in love with him long before he admitted his own feelings for the petite brunette (at least, to himself).

But it doesn't matter. Loving him would be the end of her, it would eventually kill her, and he can't stand the thought of having to deal with the loss of another beloved one because of few hours of happiness and pleasure. For her own sake, she'll never have to learn of how much she means for him, of how much he loves her.


	3. Act Two

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Also:thanks to everyone who reviewed - and allanon as well, Anceh perchè è mia "compaesana!"

* * *

ACT TWO OR THE GHOST OF ALEXANDER JANE

He hates thinking about Christmas. Thinking about it, he tends to think about happy times that are no more and that will be no more, each case is something he'd rather prefer not thinking about. Why thinking about what he has lost because of his greed, like decorating a tree with Angela and Charlotte, singing while his wife played the piano? Why thinking about what he'll never have, like decorating a tree with Teresa and two beautiful children, a boy like his daddy and a girl like her mammy, singing along with the radio? Actually, if he has to be honest, he does think about it, because he IS indeed guilty and guiltier he shall feel, along with remorse, and pain, and everything in between. (He has always known he is an emotional masochist).

What he stopped to think about a long time ago is Alexander Jane, his father, who passed away the year before Charlotte and Angela did, and why should he think about the way his father psychologically abused him for years, since the tender age of six, not long after his mother had left, removing his own son from the world out of greed, not allowing Patrick to be like any other child of his own age- no school for the psych boy wonder, just the carnie circuit, where there are marks and the carnie people. After all, he hasn't thought about the man in eight years, and he isn't going to think about him now. Alexander Jane doesn't deserve it, isn't worth the effort. Too bad his mind doesn't agree with him.

The upper part of the back door to his _rented and empty if not for the bed and a nightstand table with a couple of drawers, less than the essential in the kitchen and the bathroom furniture _place in Sacramento (self-loathing is a good thing for him, but a seven hours drive every morning would be crazy, as crazy as taking a plane every day from Los Angeles to his work place) is made of glass, and for a second, as he lifts his eyes as the key turns into the lock, he thinks that… he could swear he sees his father's reflection in the surface, but he knows it's crazy- it's just sleep deprivation, because his father is dead, and he can't see him, slightly enlightened, with ghost-like features. Jane can feel the air stirring on his neck, like by breath or hot air; Alex's eyes are wide open, but still and motionless. He is livid, and looks horrible, but not because of something he is seeing, it's like he IS the horror.

Yet, even if he knows and is sure it's just the lack of sleep, it doesn't stop him from double-checking, and he when he sees that the only visible reflection is his own, he is still startled and he has a terrible sensation running through his veins along his blood, something he has never felt before, not even like an infant. Maybe it's because of this that, even if he is well aware that ghosts don't exist, he pauses with a moment of irresolution before closing the door at his back on the light has been already turned on, double-checking his surroundings and shouting a "Bo!" that resonates into the whole empty house as he slams the door with a bang. Even this way, as he moves up to his bedroom, curled into the darkness (because that's the only thing he deserve) and enlightened only by the small light by the entrance, he checks to see that everything's all right- nobody's in the drawers, or hidden under the bed, or is wearing his pajama, neither the top or the bottom, the only part he is used to wear in the hot Californian weather.

He closes the door, quite an unusual fact since he lives alone and, once thrown his clothes on the pavement careless, once wore his pajama, he stops to look outside the window, focused on the road enlightened by street lamps and on the nightly sky, enlightened as well, but by lightening. A storm is coming (even if one is already taking place, metaphorically speaking, in his heart and in his mind), and, apparently, Sacramento will not see the snow yet again, even it has been more than seven years since last time it happened (and it should snow, according to researches, once every seven years).

And it's when he sees again, reflected on the glass of the window, his father, his face, staring at him with enraged eyes from his back.

"Bullshit" he shouts, walking across the room just to throw him on the bed, massaging, at closed eyes, his own temples. He is just tired, it's just sleep deprivation, he keeps repeating. That's why he saw his father. That's why now, once opened his eyes, he sees a bell, hanging in the room for who knows what purpose, and it's with astonishment and read that he sees it swinging softly, barely making its sound at first, just to increase in volume as time passes, becoming unbearable, few minutes lasting like hours.

Then, it as it began, it stops, only to be replaced by something else, different. Jane can hear it, coming from the top of the stairs, getting closer, getting louder, getting toward the door, something like a chain dragged on the pavement, like in the horror stories.

"It's still bullshit! I'm not going to believe that there's a ghost here!" he screams, enraged with him because he is even just contemplating that his father's ghost is here, visiting him. And even if he would like to not believe it, he becomes pale as the ghost pass through the door, stopping, grinning, in front of him, and right now there's nothing Patrick Jane would like to scream more than "I knew it, daddy's ghost has come to visit me!"

He falls from the bed, staring at the man who was his father, looking exactly like last time he saw him, almost 10 years prior; the only differences, are the fact that he is transparent and the heavy chain, clasped about his middle, long, of strong steel. He is still unsure, Patrick Jane, still incredulous, and is fighting against his senses, even if he can see through the phantom, even if he is seeing his dad standing in front of him, even if he can feel the chilling influence of the ghosts on him.

"What do you want with me, now? Who are you" Jane says caustic and cold as often.

"There are many things I want from you, son, and you should know it, after having spent your whole life with me!" While saying so, grinning, the spirit, even in transparent and seemingly made of not solid matter, goes to sit on a chair, in front of his "son". There's something he can't deny, Jane doesn't know what's going on, but there's no doubt that the voice he is hearing belongs to his father, his late father. But, still, it's just a nightmare, or a hallucination, or who knows what, but it's not real, it can't be real. "You don't believe in me, I don't understand, what evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses? Why do you even doubt them? That's not what I taught you, Patrick. Everything you do and did is based on your senses."

"My senses may be clouded. I may have a hallucination induced by sleep deprivation, or maybe it's something I ate at lunch. Now that I think of it, the roast beef looked a bit too old, and had a weird taste!" he tries to be smart to distract himself, keeping down his terror, because, if the ghost really was just an hallucination, why bothering answering his questions? No, it can't be just that, now, seeing and feeling the infernal atmosphere provided by the spirit, with everything of its being agitated by hot vapors even if he was motionless and still. But, for his own sanity, for his own sake, he has to not believe it, "I tell you this, bullshit!"

Alex raises a frightful cry, shaking his chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that Jane has to holds on the bed to avoid falling down, appearing really like a creature from a horror movie, a bit like the character in Munch's "The Scream", his chin dropping down upon his torso.

"Dad…please dad, mercy, why… why do you have to do that to me?"

"Tell me, son, do you believe in me, now?" he grins, looking again normal.

"I do" he pauses, hesitating, getting closer and closer to the man who once had been a father to him, curious of his nature, almost touching the ghosts "but, I don't understand. What are you doing here? Why did you come to me?"

"It is required of every man- the Ghost says poetically, inhaling a big breath, looking in the distance, like reflecting - that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world, and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness." Again the specter raises a cry, and shakes hiss chain with shadowy hands, before to go on "I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it link by link, of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it, like you'll eventually do as well, one day. When I died, your chain was as long as mine, but despite what you think of yourself, you worked on it"

Jane glances about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he can't see anything at all. Only one word (a begging, an imploration) leaves his mouth. "Dad…"

"I can't give you the comfort you are looking for, son. It comes from other regions, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay and I cannot linger anywhere… the whole time, these past seven years, no rest, no peace, an incessant torture of remorse, traveling on the wings of the wind…" again he scrolls the chain, looking at it like it is the cause of his troubles and sufferance, and goes on with his speech, no longer grinning, but with a scared expression and sufferance painted on his once handsome features "Listen to me, Patrick, because my time is nearly gone, and I want you to know something. I've been at your side, during the last few years, invisible, for quite a long time, but now I've been allowed to come to you in a shape you could see, because I have to warn you… I've pushed everyone away, I've been selfish, I've never cared about everyone, and you, my son, even if you once saw the light, you are falling into the darkness of your ego yet again. But Patrick, there's still hope. You can still save yourself!"

"That's what you come here to do, dad, to warn me, to save me? But I'm broken, I'm beyond salvation!"

"Three spirits will haunt you, and without their visits, you cannot hope to avoid the path I forced myself to take. This very night, at one o'clock, the first of my fellow companions will come to you" Alex pauses, looking with love and affection, or maybe regret, at his own son, in a way he has never looked at Patrick in while he was still alive. "If you'll be able to change your path, we'll never see each other, ever again. For your own sake, I truly hope so." Alex leaves his spot, and walks in direction of the window, getting it wide open just by whishing it as he approached it. Patrick is tempted to teach him for a last goodbye, one he had never had the chance to give when his father was alive, but the ghost stops him, convincing him with a mere gesture of the hand to walk no more.

When Patrick approaches the window, he can sees his father's ghostly form floating out upon the bleak, dark night, filled with phantoms wandering in restless haste, moaning as they go, every one of them with a chain just like his own father, everyone faded into the mist.

He moves back to the bed, immediately collapsing on it, falling immediately asleep on top of the cover, tired and emotionally shaken by what just happened.


	4. Act Three

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Thanks to everyone who left a review or put me on fav and7or alerts. Even if I'd like to receive more reviews, good or bad ones it doesn't matter, you still make my day. And, yesterday I forgot to tell you-I'm really sorry I let that long pass between chapter 2 and 3, but I've been extremely busy, and I really have time to write, and moslty update, on weekends (in fact, with the exception of Blackdragon, that's posted on the 15th of each month and is written with months of anticipation, you'll notice I mostly update on weekends...) . Also: soemwhere you'll notice that the style is quite old-fashioned. that's why I'm tryong to follow "A Christmas Carol" in every possible way, just changing the basilar settings, so, there are long parts where I merely adjust names, temps of verbs, and so on, letting stay the original structure of the sentence, as Dickens wrote it.

* * *

ACT THREE OR THE FIRST SPIRIT

When he wakes up covered in sweat, still shaken by what has previously happened (and Jane isn't sure if it was just a dream or if it really happened, if his father's ghost was really there, with him, trying to save his soul) his room is embraced by darkness. Only the light of the streetlamps send a glimpse of light through the curtains. Jane closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, trying to force the thought that it really happened away from his mind. He was a fraud. Ghosts don't exist. His father's wandering ghost never visited him. It was just a nightmare, a different one but nevertheless a nightmare. He is used to them, when he can actually catch up with sleep.

Still, when he hears a bell from a not so distant church striking twelve times, he freezes, his breath dying in his throat, like it was a bad omen…

It's almost the time. If his father's ghost has really been there with him, he'll receive in an hour the visit of another soul, if it happened, which he doubts. Since he is Patrick Jane and everyone knows that Patrick Jane doesn't believe in immortal souls and spirits and afterlife and so on.

He paces the room from few instants, reaching the window, and stares out of it. The world, his road, is like his own room, fallen victim of the dark, all he can make out is that it is still very foggy and extremely cold, for California standards, and that there's no noise of people running or even living- that's why he is there, because he likes the silence, he likes being alone in a world filled with other humans, he likes the silence, because he can think, and can suffer better.

Taking a big breath and shaking his head, making fun of himself, he goes to bed again, and thinks, and thinks, and thinks it over and over, and can make nothing of it. The more he thinks, the more perplexed he is; and, the more he desperately tries to send that thought away, the more he finds himself focused again on it.

His Father's Ghost bothers him exceedingly. Every time he resolves within himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flows back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presents the same problem to be worked all through, _'Was it a dream or not?'_

He remains still in his bed, in this unfortunate state, pondering the same problem, for what seems an eternity, when he remembers again, on a sudden, that the Ghost has warned him of a visitation when the bell would announce the hour of one AM.

He resolves to lie awake until the hour is passed- trying sleep would be a waste of time and energy anyway, with his sleep issues, so this may be, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.

When he hears the bell again, he realizes it's a quarter to one, and the fifteen minutes are so long, that he is more than once convinced he must have falls asleep or somehow just missed the sound. He even checks his watch and his alarm to make sure he didn't, when, finally…

_Ding, dong_

"Time has come" He says triumphantly, almost mad with him because he believed, even only for an instant, that it really happened "and nothing happened!"

He speaks before the hour bell sounds, which it now does with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashes up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his window are drawn aside by what looks like a hand, and, before Jane could realizes what's going on, his covers are send by a unknown force on the pavement.

He sits in his bed, looking around what something unusual, trying to understand where the paranormal presence may be hiding, when, turning back toward the window, he finds himself face to face with the unearthly visitor, just few inches of distance between their faces.

He is a strange figure — like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gives him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. His hair, which hangs about his neck and down his back, is white as if with age, and yet the face has not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom is on the skin. The arms are very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if hiss hold are of uncommon strength. His legs and feet, most delicately formed, are, like those upper members, bare. It wears a tunic of the purest white, and round hiss waist is bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which is beautiful. He holds a branch of fresh green holly in its hand, Jane realizes, taken away by the sight, somehow caught by it, and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, he has his dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about him is that from the crown of his head bright clear jets of light are emitted. Somehow, Jane can find the time to think if the jets may still be visible, even when the "spirit" doesn't wear his hat, now steady placed under one arm.

He doesn't know why, but Jane is captivated by the unusual visitor, and he almost grins at him, like a child on Christmas Morning; he looks at his visitor with increasing steadiness but curiosity as well, noticing a quality he hasn't make put of him at first sight. For as his belt sparkles and glitters now in one part and now in another, and what is light one instant, at another time is dark, so the figure itself fluctuates in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melt away. And in the very wonder of this, he would be himself then again, distinct and clear as ever. The only thing he can think of is that Ghosts are really like what has been described to him as child, evanescent and translucent creatures.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" he simply asks, getting closer and closer to the creature.

"I am." He simply answers. The voice is soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, the spirit was far away.

May I ask who and what are you?" Jane demands.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past." inquires Jane, observant of the spirit's dwarfish stature, finally resolving to be his usual self, ready to upset and make fun of the rest of the world, supernatural or not.

"No, mortal, I'm the spirit of _your_ past."

As the ghost answered with anger, somehow insulted by Jane's words, the man himself finds himself wishing to see the Spirit in his cap, and mentally begs him to wear it. He doesn't know why, he couldn't explain the reason; all he knows is that he is sure that he hasn't said the words out loud.

"What now?" exclaims the Ghost, furious with rage "Why you would so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?"

Jane doesn't even dare to ask him how he knew his wish, he simply and reverently disclaims all intention to offend or any knowledge of having willfully bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life. He then resolves to come back to who he really is, or at least to whom he claims to be, boldly inquiring on the nature of the business that brought them to be there at the same time.

"Your welfare, what a silly question" says the Ghost.

Jane expresses himself much obliged, but cannot help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, because he immediately answers him, still furious, Jane can tell, but with something that remembers him of a smile, or, maybe, a grin.

"Take heed" he puts out his strong hand as he speaks, and clasps Jane gently by the arm. "Rise and walk with me."

Jane knows that pleading that the weather and the hour are not adapted to pedestrian purposes is vain; he knows that it's useless pointing out that that bed is warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing (for the California standard, at least, but he has always lived south, and this is as freezing as it may get there), that he is clad only in his pajama pants, or that he is probably ill…

The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, is not to be resisted, he knows it; he understands it. He rises from his sitting position on the bed, but finding that the Spirit moves towards the window, Jane fists the too sublet fabric of what he is wearing with sweating hands, unsure if being desperate or trying to sound smart.

"I'd like to remember that, differently from you, I am mortal" he remonstrates, grinning, going for smart "and so, liable to fall."

"Bear but a touch of my hand there" says the Spirit, laying it upon his heart "and you shall be upheld in more than this."

Suddenly, they find themselves outside a city, in a place he could recognize at closed eyes…

"The carnie" he answers, grinning "I think I remember it." Jane looks around, a small smile on his lips; while the Ghost assures him that they can't be seen. He is glad of that, because the place is filled, filled with people from outside, there trying to enjoy their day off with their families, and filled with his people, the carnie people, who seem to be happy as well of the incoming festivity.

"A solitary child, neglected by his so-called friends, is left outside of this all. His father never thought he was supposed to mix himself with lesser people. He taught his own son that he had every right of consider himself superior to the rest of the world because of what he could accomplish with his uncanny abilities"

Jane remembers it, and sobs in silence. He was that child, forced to trick his way into innocents' lives even on Christmas time, because, according to his own father, it was the time of the year when people were easier to influence.

"Let's go on"

As the words are spoken, they pass through the wall, and stand upon the ocean and a beach of light, almost white, sand. The city has entirely vanished, not a vestige of it is to be seen, and the darkness and the mist have vanished with it, for it is a clear, typical Californian Christmas day, with a bright sun and an appealing temperature and a wonderful weather.

"Bloody hell…" says Jane, clasping his hands together, as he looks at the well known place, a place where he is been happy once, not knowing if he should be happy, sad or furious with the creature for what the memory the ghost is forcing him to bring back to the front of his mind. "It's my home… my family's home… where I lived with… where…where…"

The Spirit gazes upon him mildly, his gentle touch, though it has been light and instantaneous, appears still present to the old man's sense of feelings. Jane is conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten, happy memories that just a bad one has erased in his mind, now driven only by sufferance and thirst for vengeance.

"Your lip is trembling" says the Ghost, with the shadow of a knowing and understanding smile "And what is that upon your cheek?"

Jane mutters, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it is a pimple and begs the Ghost to lead him where they are supposed to be, unable to carry on with the memories, already wishing for it to be over once and for all.

"You recollect the way." inquires the Spirit.

"Remember it." cries Jane with fervor, desperation and sufferance; "I could walk it blindfold. Do you really think my mind never goes back to those days? It's my only though, Ghost, my only constant thought, alongside my thirst for vengeance, because this is what I've lost because of my greed, and I deserve every instant of the sufferance I bring upon myself remembering what is gone because of my wrongs!"

"Strange you have forgotten it for so many years, then" observes the Ghost, still with the knowing smile "Let us go on, then"

They walk along the sand, Jane recognizing every angle of the place, every house in the distance, and every particular of the home… a home where only 3 people are present, but all in great spirits, the air full of merry music…

"These are but shadows of the things that have been" says the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us." He remembers him, yet again.

Jane could describe that day perfectly, and with his breath dying in his throat he reflects… Why is he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see this event? Why do his cold eye glisten and his heart leap up as looking at the scene? Why is he filled with gladness when he hears them give each other Merry Christmas, as he holds both Annie and Charlotte at six in the morning on Christmas day, his daughter busy destroying the paper that cover her gifts? What was and is merry Christmas to him? What good has it ever done to him? He may have good memories, but everything's good had been destroyed by a single, terrible instant of seven years prior.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered" says the Ghost, looking at both women in Jane's embrace "but she had a large heart, they both had."

"So she had," Jane cries, unable to cover his tears "you're right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit, never. Not when they accepted who and what I was. They didn't hate me because of it, they… they simply accepted that I was whom I was."

"That's why you resent yourself so much, because you think you killed them." Jane grunts something in response, and simply looks in front of him, crossed arms. "Its' true, I know it, there's no reason to hide it. I know everything there's to know of you."

Jane seems uneasy in his mind; and answers briefly, a simple "Sure, yeah"

"You gave her a pony, a fake pony, I mean. It was the tony she had asked in her letter to Santa."

"She dictated it to Annie" he looks, with a small smile, at the three people on the carpet, a man in casual clothes enjoying him "I gave her a small doll, a Pocahontas. It was big enough to ride the pony."

During the whole of this time, Jane has acted like a man out of his wits, like, for the first time after so long, he could finally be the man he has always wanted to be, and deep down knew he could be. His heart and soul are in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborates everything, remembers everything, enjoys everything, and undergoes the strangest agitation. It is not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and the two women are turned from them, that he remembers the Ghost, and becomes conscious that he is looking full upon him, while the light upon his head burnt very clear.

"My time is coming to an end. Let's be quick" The Ghost says as he gazes over Jane's forehead with a touch as gentle as the one of a newborn child.

Again, Jane sees him. He is older now, but still a young man, with still a long road ahead of him, but his face has begun to wear the signs of sufferance, self-loathing and thirst for vengeance, he can say it from the motion of his restless and sleepless eyes, he can see it looking at a man who's just a shadow of who he was, of who he could have been.

He is alone, in the same house as before, in the same room even, but the home is empty of life, empty of furniture. There's nothing that could link that place that it was with the one that it is, not even the weather. Where there was sun, there's fog now, there are dark, stormy clouds, like the weather could somehow mirror his own inner darkness.

"Those ones were happy memories, Mr. Jane. Tell me, why do you take upon yourself to bring such a sufferance to your heart when you bring them back here?" The Ghost asks, touching again Jane's forehead, with a sad smile. "What good does it do to you, acting this way, forgetting what was good in honor of the greatest plague of this world, death? Don't you think that you should remember what it was for what it truly was, untamed by what happened? Don't you think that you're not doing them anything good by mixing what they gave you with the evil of a hand that wasn't even yours to begin with? Do you think that they could want you freeze in time, focused only on death, your, theirs, your nemesis'? Do you ever wonder if she, or someone like her, would seek you out, seeing the man you've become? You know the answer to all my questions, Mr. Jane."

"Spirit" Jane orders "show me no more. Bring me back home, and stop to delight yourself into torturing me! Leave me. Take me back, and don't haunt me any longer!"

"One more vision" says the Ghost.

"No more, I beg you, show me no more. I don't wish to keep seeing this…" But the Ghost takes him for the arms, turning him towards what he recognizes as a modern but yet cozy kitchen, quite small, in a quite small apartment. He doesn't know who lives there, he doesn't recognize the place, but of he should associate it with a word, it would be… home.

Then, he saw them, Lisbon and Grace, busy cooking something in the oven. Lisbon isn't exactly at easy, with the redhead around in a private matter, and seems even more uneasy given the place. He thinks he can say when this scene took place, the previous year. He knows that Grace had found herself in the situation of being unable to make home at the last minute, and that the same had happened to Lisbon, blocked with her body in Sacramento while her mind and heart were in Chicago, and he knew that, being the only two (3, with him) of the team, with a distant family, they decided that, even if it was going to be rather uncomfortable, they better had to spend the festivity at least together than alone…

"I saw Jane while I was grocery shopping. Well, actually, it was more like a glimpse of him. He was on the other side of the road, but I know he was rolling his eyes at a Santa. He was all alone… he seemed so… resentful of everything and everyone…" Lisbon says to Grace, extremely said, with tears in her voice. Not for the first time, Jane wonders how long she has felt that way about him, if her love for him was a newfound, or at least recently discovered, feeling, or if it could find its roots in a long time now gone…

"Spirit, please, I wish to leave this place and time" Jane begs at closed eyes.

"Don't blame me, Mr. Jane. I told you these are just shadows of the past, of things that have been. They are what they are; they are what you've made of them."

"Bring me back, I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it!"

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part is undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Jane observes that the spirit's light is now burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seizes the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action presses it down upon its head.

The Spirit drops beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Jane presses it down with all his force, he cannot hide the light, which streams from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He is conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gives the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed, and has barely time to reel to bed, before he sinks into a heavy sleep.

Before passing out into unconsciousness, he merely hears the Ghost of the past whispering something that seems like "My fellow companion will join you when the bell will ring for three times. Prepare yourself, Mr. Jane."


	5. Act Four

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Thanks to everyone who left a review or put me on fav and7or alerts. Even if I'd like to receive more reviews, good or bad ones it doesn't matter, you still make my day!

By the way: of all the chapters I've written so far, this is porbably the one that's more distant from the original Dickens plot, with less Ghost scenes, and a (slightly) different version of the Christmas Present ghost... I still hope you'll like it, also because it's (not so) slowly going to culminate into the final chapter, (six? seven? I still don't know!) Anyway, good reading. and, If you never read the original Christmas carol, do it, you'll not regret it!

* * *

ACT FOUR OR THE SECOND SPIRIT

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Jane realizes that the church's bells is signaling the hour of 3 in the morning. He has slept an agitated sleep as he has been through during the last few years of his still young life, but, deep down, he knows the truth. Some force he can't understand has awakened him in the nick of time, right on time for his meeting for the second ghost, like his own father has foreseen.

He paces the room, nervous, and soon Jane finds himself in front of the window, the same that the Ghost of the past Christmas has cast aside. He looks around, he looks under his bed like a scared child would do, he keeps pacing his own room, for the first time scared of something he knows isn't from this plane of existence; his only desire is to be able to not being taken by surprise by the second messenger.

He is ready for the next, strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros could astonish him very much, but he is really ready? No, he knows it, deep down in his heart he knows it, and like he knows he isn't sure if he'll ever be ready to accept what he truly feels for his savior, Teresa Lisbon. He knows that the Ghost of the past showed him few moments of his past filled by regret (the way he had, that previous year, neglected Lisbon's company, well aware of the sufferance he was causing her), rage (the way his own father forced him to abandon his fellow humans) sufferance (his first Christmas alone, after losing Angie and Charlotte)and guilty because he had spent just a brief time alongside the family he had built for himself, even if he could have done more, much more, if only he had wanted it…

As the bell ring the time of three, he mentally prepares himself to face the second guest of the night, but Jane is taken by surprise not by the spirit itself, but by the lack of appearance.

Nothing, and no one, appears in front of him.

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes pass, and still nothing. He just keeps staying awake in his bed, unsure of he really should wait for some kind of apparition. Maybe he never met his father's specter, or the Ghost of the past Christmas.

Then, under the door, he sees it, a bright light, as it was day, coming from the corridor outside the bedroom. the light is hot, and so bright, that he wonders if the sun just set and he didn't noticed it, or if maybe there's a fire into the house. Ha collect all his courage and, slowly, Patrick opens the door, just a bit, a mere crack. And it's in that moment that he hears it, a strange voice, ordering him to move on, to leave the room and join it.

He can't help but obey, because, even if he has never obeyed to any form of authority his whole life, this is something beyond his compression. He HAS to follow the entity's orders, leaving his own room to find himself into… Into his own room again, the same, but, yet, completely different, the same but like it had gone through some kind of surprising transformation: the walls and ceiling are so hung with living green and bright gleaming berries, that it looks like the wall of the secret garden; the crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflect back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there, and on the centre of the room, something that seems an endless table, with turkeys, geese, sausages, pies, puddings, chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam, and, sitting at the table, facing Jane, stands in all his glory a merry giant (who somehow reminds Jane of Rigsby), busy eating with such a happiness with one hand only, while the other one holds a horn that, lie the first specter's crown, enlightened Jane and his surroundings.

"Come here, man, and join me! Don't you wish to know me better?" he exclaims, leaving the food on the table, with happiness and joviality, and, again, Jane can't help but follow the orders, and, timidly, he joins his "guest" at the table, still somehow scared of meeting the Ghost's gaze, as kind and gentle as it looks. "Mr. Jane, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present, and I'd rather prefer if you could look at me in the eyes." he says, still gently, and again Jane follows his instructions, meeting his gaze for the first time, with a reverence he has never reserved for another human being; his "guest" is clothed in one simple green robe bordered with white fur, and it hangs so loosely on the figure, that his breast are bare, like his feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment and on his head he wears only a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles, on his long, free, dark brown curls. There's something odd about this specter, Jane can say it, because, even if he knows of what the Christmas specters are able, everything about this giant screams "free", from his genial face to his sparkling eye, from his open hand to his cheery voice, from his unconstrained demeanor to his joyful air.

Actually, he isn't sure if he is dealing with a giant or some twisted mix between the Greek god Bacco and Santa Klaus…

"It looks like you've never seen someone like me before, Mr. Jane!" He exclaims patting Jane on the shoulders with a rigorous laughter.

"I'm afraid I'll have to admit that you're not exactly what I was thinking I was going to meet, whatever it was" he admits, then, as the Ghost roses, he does as well, facing him, but not with force, but on surrounding. "Spirit, conduct me where you have to. I've been told there was a lesson I needed to learn, and I think I'm finally going there. If you wish to teach me anything, please, let me profit of it."

"Good, Mr. Jane. Then, all you have to do is touching my robe" Jane only nods, holding the piece of clothing fast and with all his strength, and as he does so, everything disappear, from the "decorations" the Ghost brought to the room itself, to the night itself. Suddenly, they find themselves in the city streets on Christmas morning, with people busy greeting friends and families and strangers as well, a joyful melody filling the air, as children run everywhere playing with artificial snow, like it could make more real the fact that Christmas has come. The weather is magnificent, as magnificent as winter in California may be, not too cold, and neither too hot, the perfect temperature, and if nothing, it makes everything more perfect, happier, and the bells are singing, all together in the whole city, a concert that fills people's hearts when they gather to reach chapels and churches, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and the happiest smiles, lover embraced and family holding hands.

And then, people who are running the last minute errands and families busy in the kitchen, preparing lunch, no bad words, no anger. The only thing Jane sees, he realizes with tears he no longer tries to hide, is love. He sees the love of parents for their children and vice-versa (a love he hopes, one day, he'll see again on his own, first hand), the love of enamored people (the kind of love he wish he'll be able to share, one day, with Lisbon), and he sees the kind of love he ahs for the team, the love you reserve for the ones that are family without being your blood, your everything without asking for it.

"Let's go, there's something we shall see, my friend" the Ghost says again patting Jane on the shoulders, and in an instant, they are in front first, and then inside, a place the mortal knows too well, even if only once he sat foot there, because even if his body can't be there, his mind and soul agonize to spend the rest of his existence between the walls. Oh, if only he could be there! He'd never ask to leave, if only things were different, and shadows and fears weren't filling his poor, lost and broken soul!

"Teresa…" he whispers with devotion is his voice, getting closer and closer to the only object of his desire. He almost skims over her face, almost runs his finger through her long, dark, naturally curly hair, as he looks at her, busy trying to remedy to a little mess she just did in the kitchen while cooking potatoes, and she looks…

As much as he has always found Teresa Lisbon adorable, nothing can be compared to this, to domestic Lisbon. He knows that the woman he saw years prior into her kitchen, while trying to defend her honor and her honesty from the machinations of an evil man, were just a shade of what she truly was. He knew that Teresa Lisbon may wish to be in control on the job, but was quite the opposite when around people she trusts, and looking at her, dressed with simple sneakers, jeans, a white shirt and a Christmas-themed sweater, with a Christmas themed apron, all dirty, he can't help but find her… he doesn't know if cute is the right way to describe the person you'd wish to spend the rest of your life with, but she is, and his only though is that he'd like to see that same house filled with children with blonde curls and green eyes, or dark curls and blue eyes, and Teresa the same as now…

Even if he has long known his heart belonged to her, he is somehow scared when he admits that it's not only her that he craves, but building a future, a family, a legacy to the world, together.

"Ehy Tess, Jimmy and Carol are here!" a dark haired, green eyed younger man screams as he enters in the kitchen. Jane would like to admit he knows who he is, but he just knows only Lisbon's brothers' names- James (Jimmy), Thomas (Tommy, the youngest, and the most problematic one, but rumors say they have make peace. He should be the one in the kitchen with Teresa) and Andrew. He knows as well that every one of them has already a family of their own (Tommy, who is ten years younger than Lisbon, has just become a dad for the first time, even if he and Melody aren't married yet) and, not for the first time, he finds himself desiring to be there with her, sharing this festivity, this time of year, a part of her life, of their lives.

"Tess!" a woman in her middle thirties, light brown hair, practically runs into the kitchen, jumping on Teresa, embracing her with tears, followed by two young girl, twins, but not equal, of more or less four.

They giggle as they embrace Teresa's legs, and she giggles in return, and it's the most beautiful sound Jane has ever heard in his life.

"Ehy sis, I hope you forgot to turn the mobile off, because there's no way we are going to allow you to run again after your boyfriend!" the man he assumes being James embraces her as well, while Carol is still holding Teresa, and she, in return for the remark he knows is about him, hits her brother on the arm, playfully.

"Patrick Jane isn't my boyfriend, for the last time!"

"Well, you surely spend a lot of time talking about this guy with us… are you sure you're not hiding something, sis? It's not like you have some secret news you have to share with us, right?" Tommy says, making fun of her, while, from the other part of the door, children can be heard playing and adults are busy chatting and finishing arranging the table.

"Ah! I knew it! You've been secretly dating him and now you've decided to elope!" Claire says happily clapping her hands together and jumping, while Teresa's eyes turned as bigger as never before, her face pale like a piece of paper.

"No! I'm not dating Jane! We are not… we are not like that!"

"Sure, that's why you had invited him over for lunch, because you don't like him that way. That's the reason I invited Melody two years ago to our annual Lisbon Christmas Celebration, because we weren't that way…" Tommy says with evident sarcasm while trying with a spoon some of the food that's ready to be soon served, adorning the kitchen table in its entire splendor.

Jane can't help but smile looking at HIS LISBON blushing, a clear sign that, even if they are not dating, and probably never will, her feeling for him run deeper than what she cares to admit.

"Well, you know what? If our dear Mr. Jane would be here, I'd give him a piece of my mind!" another woman, he assumes Andrew's wife, join the conversation, looking mad, with her crossed arms on her merely noticeable baby bump. She should be Sally, and, from what he hears, and the story he has overheard, she is extremely protective of Teresa, even if she is younger than the dark haired cop "He always make Tessie mad, or sad, or both. And last year, because of him, she couldn't make it for Christmas in Chicago! If he was here, I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it!"

"C'mon Sally, it is Christmas" Teresa reminds her with a pointing finger but a bright smile, so different from the woman he is sued to work with "Besides, you should give the children a good example."

"Good example? Teresa, dear, you should tell him about being a good example! The man is a pain and an asshole, he thinks he is better than all of us, you know he is, Teresa, nobody knows it better than you do, poor soul!"

"Sally, Christmas…" it is Teresa's mild answer, given still smiling, like a good mother than reprimands her children.

"Well, I don't care what you say, from what you say, that's what he is, and I'll never drink to his health. I bet the man is a Grinch."

Jane suffers internally a bit, realizing that the mere mention of his name has cast a shadow upon such a fest, but it is with great happiness that he can see that, just few minutes later, all the joy and the happiness are back, they are ten times merrier than before, and, once gathered around the table in the dining room, that all talk about everything: Andrew talks about his work as a lawyer, and Sally about her father's last wedding; Tommy talks about how he is playing into a band into his free time, while Carol talks about the incoming new Lisbon; Jimmy shares his work-related stories (it comes out he is a detective, back home in Chicago) while Melody spends almost the entire time blushing and avoiding talking, still unsure about how she feels in this family, scared to not being worth them. Even the four children, between three to six years old, share stories from school and friends and life as well.

And there's music, after lunch, with Tommy playing Christmas song on his beloved guitar, with Melody (Oh, what truth behind her name!) singing along with him with an angelic voice.

They have everything they could ask for. They may be far from rich, but they are happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and content, and when they fade in the light of the specter, they couldn't look happier.

He should have said yes, Jane realizes. He should have said yes to Lisbon, he should have accepted everything she had to offer, not only the day together, but her, the whole person she is. He could be hers, and she could be his, if only they could find the courage to say the words out loud and stop hiding behind lies and secrets, behind mask that they don't know any longer how to remove.

Much they see, and far they go, and many homes they visit, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stand beside sick beds, and they are cheerful; on foreign lands, and they are close at home; by struggling men, and they are patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it is rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority has not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he leave his blessing, and teach Jane his precepts. It is a long night, if it was only a night, but Jane his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appear to be condensed into the space of time they pass together.

Somewhere, a bell signals that it's four o' clock, and as they left his place, back they are, his room as it was before the spirit come to visit him, while the Ghost himself…

"You are…older than when we met, Spirit" Jane asks tentatively looking at the Ghost, no more frightened by him, noticing, not for the first time in the night, how his features, his eyes turned darker, how his long hair are now white, the deep lines on his face "Tell me, Spirit, have your brothers and sister the same short life-spam as you?"

The ghost turns to look at Jane, amused, with the same liberty and joy in his old eyes than when he was younger, and the Mentalist can't help but think again about the fact that this "man" in front of him could, indeed, be Santa Klaus. "I'm the spirit of the Present, Mr. Jane. I see the light every day on midnight as an infant, and I die an old man every day at midnight."

"Spirit?" Jane asks, this time, indeed, scared, but not of the spirit himself, that hasn't bothered him in his voyage, but made his day, showing him how loved the woman who possesses his hearth is, but by what he sees, hidden under the Ghost's robe "Spirit, may I ask you what it is that I'm seeing under your robe? It looks like a foot, but it can't be yours…."

"Oh, those ones…" the ghost scrolls his shoulders with nonchalance, lifting his robe so that Jane could see two children (a boy and a girl), embraced to his legs, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable, greenish, like they were sick, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but, somehow, prostrating as well, like they could know want humility may be. "Mr. Jane, allow me to introduce to the world's worst children: the boy is Ignorance, while the Girl, you already met in your life and know how to handle, is Want. But, my friend, it's with her brother you have to be careful, because sometimes being ignorant doesn't merely not knowing things, but not admitting them, it means not admitting what other people may need. A mistake you mortals do too often…"

Saying so, with a smile, the Giant vanishes, and Jane looks around himself for the last ghost, his room vibrating. Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, he sees it, a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist towards him….


	6. Act Five

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Thanks to everyone who left a review or put me on fav and7or alerts. Even if I'd like to receive more reviews, good or bad ones it doesn't matter, you still make my day!

By the way: again, a bit different, with less scenes about a certain thing happening in the original Christmas Carol, and one that wasn't in the novel - and, I'm telling you (especially the ones that pm or reviewed me about the visit of the spirit of Christmas past) this is, probably, the saddest one, especially toward the end. But, in the epilogue, things will get better (and will definitely be differetn from the novel, since it wasn't a love story that Dickens wrote)

Anyway, good reading. and, If you never read the original Christmas carol, do it, you'll not regret it!

* * *

ACT FIVE OR THE LAST SPIRIT

_Saying so, with a smile, the Giant vanishes, and Jane looks around himself for the last ghost, his room vibrating. Lifting his eyes to the ceiling, he sees it, a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist towards him…._

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approach, flying towards Jane like moving, like his own father has said, on the wings of wind. Slowly he comes, and when they are face to face, they only thing Jane can ménage to do is falling on his knees, his breath dying in his throat, scared as never before, the air filled with gloom and mystery and something else…like the sensation of an impending Doom.

The Ghost is shrouded in a deep black garment, which conceals everything if not the outstretched right hand; his "mantle" is so dark it's hard to detach the supernatural being from the dark fog surrounding it- it's even impossible to say if the being is male of female in nature, if Ghosts have genders, that it is.

Jane is pretty sure that it is tall and stately when it comes beside him, and its mysterious presence seems to fill him with a solemn dread. He knows no more, for the Spirit neither speak nor move, making the situation the more terrible, hard to handle, scary for Jane.

Even the day he met Red John, he hasn't been that scared.

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas future." He says looking at the pavement, not daring to face the Ghost. There should be resolution in his voice, but Patrick Jane can't find any.

The Spirit doesn't answer him, only, it points with its outstretched hand a point behind Jane's shoulders, like indicating what it wishes to show him.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in due time" Jane keeps saying, still refusing to meet the Spirit's gaze, his eyes focused on the point indicated by said entity, like something was already there, but all he can see, for now, is an empty wall. "I'm not wrong, am I?"

The upper portion of the garment contracts for an instant in its folds, making it look like that the Spirit is inclining its head, and this is the only answer Jane receives from the creature.

This night may have prepared him, may have make him used to this kind of apparitions, but, still, Jane is scared nevertheless by this one: he fears the silent shape so much that his legs tremble beneath him, and he finds out that he can hardly stand when he prepares to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover, when it walks past Jane, in direction of the point he was looking at before, still embraced by fog.

But it seems to make only things worse for Jane. It thrills him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud there are ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while the only thing he can see is the hand, making him wonder, from a brief instant, if he is seeing this only because he is a mere mortal, or if other sleepless, dead souls see the same as him right now.

"Ghost of the Future." he exclaims with trembling voice, still not daring to meet the point where the ghost' eyes should be "I fear you more than any spirit I have seen this night, more than any mortal soul I have met in my life. But I know your purpose, I know you all are supposed to teach me a lesson, to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart." He pauses, finally turning his head to look at the apparition "Ghost, why don't you talk with me? Don't you have a lesson to teach me like your brothers did?"

It gives him no reply, if not the hand pointing straight before them.

"Let's go" Jane says, finally with force "let's go. Time's precious for me now"

The Phantom moves away as it has come towards him, and Jane follows in the shadow of its dress, flying together, on the wings of the wind…

They scarcely seem to enter the city, and before Jane could register it, he is in a place well known, one of the few places he considers home…the CBI headquarter. It's not in the bullpen of the SCU, though, but they are travelling along the whole building, amongst the agents who hurry up and down, and check reports, and converse in groups, and look at their watches, checking the hour, waiting to go back home, and so forth, as Jane has seen them doing often.

The Spirit stops beside one little knot of men; observing that the hand was pointed to them, Jane advances to listen to their talk.

"No" says a guy he knows is for cyber-crimes, a fat man with a monstrous chin "I don't know much about it, either. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquires another.

"Last night, I think. Looks like SCU is under lockdown, no one enters or leave. Only the boss went to talk with them. Nothing official has been said."

"I wonder if the rumors are true… what you think was going though his mind?" asks a third, checking his surrounding to make sure no one is around but them and starting to smoke a cigarette "Honestly, sometimes it seemed that the guy thought he was never going to die…"

"God only knows what used to go through his mind the whole time…" says the first, with a yawn. "I'll never understand why they allowed him to stay and keep up with his crap. Do you think it was true what they said, about him, and Lisbon, you know…"

"I'd not be surprised if it was true. The bastard enjoyed too much manipulating people. I'd not be surprised if he'd seduced her to have his way into case as well…" says the second.

"And a certain case in particular. It wasn't a secret how he felt for the Red John case. Not that I blame him, though. I'd be crazy as well if something like that had happened to me, but, still, how he acted, what he did to Lisbon and the team… they didn't deserve it, I say." The first one says again.

"Well, he was the one who kept the secret, so, I say they are better off this way. Anyway, what about Lisbon? I've heard she is still closed in her office with the boss…" asks another one.

"It seems she took it pretty bad" says the man with the large chin, yawning again. "she is talking just with the boss, that's all I know, and I'm not even sure it's true, even if…according to Eve in financial, the guy had spent the last months closed in that old attic of ours. It seems Lisbon hasn't left the place for hours after they told her, and Eve said everyone could hear her crying. Apparently, this seems to confirm the rumors of them being in an affair."

This pleasantry is received with a general laugh that makes Jane shivers in pain. They are talking about death and sufferance, and they are laughing like it's nothing.

"It's likely to be a very small funeral" says the same one "I swear I don't know who could go to pay their last goodbye. Hell, I doubt even his so-called team would like to go. Well, I suppose we make up a party and volunteer. Maybe things will be interesting, after all."

"I don't mind going, if I have to be honest. I'd like to see if any of the people he pissed off in the last few years will make an appearance to split on his grieve!" Another laugh follows the statement of the new came, making Jane shiver yet again.

'Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all" says the first speaker "But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. Besides, he was at least funny, and made interesting rumors. I was scared of him, though, but at least he always said "hi" when we met in the corridor"

Speakers and listeners stroll away, mixing with other groups, with other people, people he knows, people he meets every day. He looks towards the Spirit for an explanation, even if, deep down, the meaning of what the group said is already clear to him.

But, still, the Phantom moves away, bringing them into the bullpen of "his" unit, the finger pointed to two people, Van Pelt and Rigsby, embraced in the small kitchenette, the red head in tears in the embrace of her former lover. Jane listens again, thinking that the explanation might lay here, knowing that if his "fear" is true, then, it will be the topic of conversation between the duos.

"Grace, you need to talk to me, please." Jane isn't sure if Rigsby means she should talk for her own good, of for his own, because he seems to need to be grounded as well.

"How do you think I feel?" she says, between tears, her face hidden in his shirt.

"Grace, I know it's not going to help… but maybe… maybe we should consider that… this is something we have always considered." He says tentatively, not believing it himself.

"It doesn't make it better!" she shouts leaving him embrace "I thought we had changed his mind! I thought he cared about us! I thought… I thought he at least cared about Lisbon, but it was all a lie, isn't it? He never gave a damn about us; we were only pawns in his chess game with Red John! He played us and he fooled us!"

"Grace, we knew how he felt for these cases. We knew how he felt about Red John." He says taking her back into his embrace "maybe it's better off this way. Lisbon will be bad for a while, but it would be worse if she had to arrest him…. Besides, maybe now he is happy, maybe is back where he belonged, with his beloved ones."

"He is a murder, Wayne. And what he did to himself isn't any different than suicide! He knew that he was going to get killed as well!" she collapses again in tears, as Wayne keeps holding her like for dear life, as she does as well, their tears mixing together as he sweetly kisses her forehead to calm her down.

From now on, Grace, the strong believer, will probably hate Christmas for the rest of her life, he realizes unpleasantly, and it will be because of him and what he did. "At least, my death did some good. At least, now they are back together…"

Even if part of him is glad he finally managed to get to Red John and kill him, he resolves to treasure up every word he heard and is hearing, and everything he saw and sees, and he still wonders, what it is the clue he is missing, what will give him the solution of these riddle. Is the lesson he is supposed to learn that he isn't supposed to die? Of course not, he knows that dying is the ultimate fate of every human and mortal soul…

Quiet and dark, beside him stands the Phantom, with its outstretched hand, and when he rouses himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancies from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes are looking at him keenly. It makes him shudder, and feel very cold…

They move away from the private scene, and moves into the next room, where Cho is sitting at his desk, running his fingers through his hair, looking with obvious rage at what used to be Jane's couch. He leaves his seat, approach the piece of furniture and, violently, hits him with fits and kicks, with guttural grunts of rage, and tears in his eyes as well. "Damn you, Jane, for entering into our lives! Damn you because you made us all care for you! Damn you because we believed you!"

"The couch didn't do anything, Cho" both Jane and Cho turns to look at the person who just spoke, an extremely sad, but still in control, Teresa Lisbon. It seems she hasn't slept in ages, her eyes are red and puffy for the tears, and she is holding, or, more precisely, _embracing, _one if his jacket like for dear life… a jacket covered in blood, just like her blouse, and the mentalist wonders if it's because she hold the suit or because she hold him…

The only thing he knows it's that the sight before him breaks his heart, even if he sees Lisbon is hiding all the emotions she probably feels right now, her love towards him, and the delusion, mostly.

"Boss…" he says approaching her, but Lisbon stops him, with an outstretched hand, freezing him where he stands.

"Cho, no, really, there's no need to hug me or be sorry. I've always knew something like that was going to happen, that in the end, he was going to be death or in prison. Besides, we're all better off this way. Jane finally reached his objective, and he is better off death… he has stopped living a long time ago, and was merely going through hell. Maybe he is finally happy, wherever he is, I'll no longer have to deal with him and we'll never receive complaints ever again. We'll have few issues with she solved cases rating for a while, but we'll eventually come back to be what we already were before he come here, we were the best CBI unit before him and we'll be it again." Without adding further words, without crying furthermore, she moves back to the safety of her office, and closes the door and the blinds as she enters, wishing only to be left alone with her sufferance. She knows they'll eventually come back to their old routine, to being the best CBI team, but what she knows is that they'll never get better, they'll never be able to just walk past this, and she'll never be able to.

And, even if he knows it, Jane tries to think it's not what he sees in her eyes, that, like everybody else, she'll eventually move on, she'll forget about him and whatever she felt for him.

"She'll move on. She'll forget about me. It was… it's not even a fling. She just has a crush on me…" he says, looking at the heartbroken Lisbon, silently crying in her chair for the man she loved but never loved her back, holding his jacket like it could change a single thing, like it means the world to her.

"She'll move on, she is that strong, she has overcome so much in her life, and she'll just do the same with this as well. Besides, you heard her" he says to the spirit, trying to convince himself and not his "companion" with a voice that's not even close to steady and firm "she knew what was coming. I told her what my intentions were, more than once. It was her fault if she deluded herself believing she could change my mind!"

Again, the Spirit seems to nod, but Jane can't say for sure. All he knows is that the Spirit is now pointing to a distant point behind Lisbon's back with his skeleton-like hand, and before he could realize what's going on, they find themselves in a cemetery, in a sunny day, clearly in late autumn or even winter. Christmas again, he wonders under his breath as he looks around searching for familiar faces. He doesn't think it could be his own funeral, he realizes. There's too many people-even if all the guys at CBI told they were going to go just to see who was going to be there, besides, it's not where he asked to be buried (close to Charlotte and Angela) and, mostly, the person he cared about, the only person he wanted at his funeral isn't there.

_Lisbon_ _isn't there._

But her family, though, it is, and he doesn't understand it. There are her brothers, her sisters in law, her nieces and nephews. There's Minelli and there's Hightower, there are many people from the CBI, there's the team, with Grace- a clear pregnant belly hidden under her coat- and Wayne holding her, and there's Cho, at Elise's arms. It's clear she is trying to make it better for him, and it's clear that he no longer can act like the stoic man he has always pretended to be, and this is enough to break Jane's heart.

_Lisbon's the only one who isn't there._

The Spirit stands among the graves, pointing at one, the one around which they are all gathered, and Jane, feeling like is dying a little bit more every instant he walks closer and closer to it, advances trembling, and Jane, finally, see the Spirit for what it is, even if the Shape of the creature is still the same, he sees it differently, with brand new eyes.

_Death, the dark reaper, is standing in front of a tombstone._

"No…" he whispers collapsing on his knees, in tears, in front of the simple, and elegant, grave, where only few words were written, accompanying the picture of a young, happy and smiling person…

_Death, the dark reaper, is standing in front of Teresa Lisbon's grave._

Jane looks at the words, skimming over the silver metal, only the back of his mind paying attention to what is happening around him, the Ghost, the reaper, forgotten for now.

_Teresa Catherine Lisbon 1973-2012_

"I hope our dear Mr. Jane will be happy, now that he has killed Teresa as well…" Sally says with a great rage, closed eyes while holding one of her children in her arms, like a life preserver.

"Sally, drop it, please, that's nor the place or the time to start this!" her husband reprimands her, with rage in his voice, a calm rage though, that reminds Jane of his own.

"But it's true and you know it! It took her a year, but at the end, she gave up on living. Andy, she… wasn't even surviving! Not eating, not sleeping, and drinking more or less a glass of water… She was barely existing, and all because of HIM! He may have as well put a dagger through her heart, or shot her in the back!"

"Damn it, Sally, that's enough! She loved him, what was she supposed to react to his death? What would you do if I died?"

"It's different, Andy! You love me! You don't keep things from me! He never cared about anything but himself, he wasn't worth the pain she went through this last year, and don't you dare selling me all your crap about how now she has reached a higher state of existence, how she is in a better place, and how happy she is now that she has been reunited with her long lost love, because I don't believe it, and neither do you! Teresa was our friend, she was your sister, and she is dead because of him, and I don't care what people say, I'll never forgive that… man… for what he did to her! I don't care if he had suffered in his life or not, I don't care how long he has been dead, I'll never forgive him, and I'll never accept you talking about HER death as it were something natural!"

Saying so, Sally, in tears, runs away, followed by her daughter and, soon, by her husband as well, while everybody stays.

"She is right, and we all know it. I'll never understand how you and Cho can forgive him… pity him… try to understand him!" Grace hisses, furious, between her teeth, and somehow, this is what hits him the most. Grace, little, sweet Grace, the one he thought was going to stick by his side or at least pity him, hates him.

She hates him and, he realizes still crying, she probably has all the reasons to.

"Ghost…" he pleas at closed eyes, still on his knees on front of the grave of the woman he has always desired since the first moment they eyes met "Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost points downward to the grave by which it stands, without answering to his question, his desperate question, the one who could easily plague what's left to live of his life.

"I need to know, Ghost, if I can still change HER destiny. I don't care about me, but she is too precious to waste her life because of me!" he says, standing, facing the reaper. "Maybe I'm still in time to change my destiny! Maybe I can still take another road! Tell me this is the case; please, tell me this is just one of the possible outcomes of our lives! Say this is what you showed me!"

The Spirit is immovable as ever, the finger pointing from the grave to him, and back again.

"No, Spirit, Oh no, no…" he begs, ending again on the soil, again desperate, again in tears. It's the end of the world; maybe only of the world as he knows it, but it's an end nevertheless, and end Jane never wished to see…

_The finger still is there. _

"Spirit" he cries, tight clutching at its robe "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been, but tell me, why showing me this, why torturing me with the image of her death, if I am past all hope?"

For the first time the hand seems to shake.

"Spirit" he pursues, still on the ground, still desperate, still in tears, his eyes sometimes on the creature, sometimes on the funeral of his lost love "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life, if not for my own good, for her…"

The kind hand trembles yet again, shaken more forcibly this time.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future, I will remember the good things like what whet they were, good things, and I will not contaminate my happy memories with the shadows of the evil of someone else's hand. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Tell me I still have time to erase what's written on this stone; tell me there's still hope for me and for her!"

In his agony, Jane takes the spectral, skeleton hand in his own; it tries to free itself from the mortal's hold, but he is strong in his entreaty, as strong as never before, his eyes dark with passion and resolution, and he detains it as long as possible, until, finally, the Spirit, stronger yet, repulses him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate and the one of beloved reversed, he sees an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. Jane is like captured by it, and when he is released, he finds himself in his bed yet again, covered in sweat, his breathing erratic, his pupils dilated, but him mind and hear as clear as never before.


	7. Act Six

Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just **_"write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed by the light of reason..." _**(No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one of the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Thanks to everyone who left a review or put me on fav and-or alerts. Even if I'd like to receive more reviews, good or bad ones it doesn't matter, you still make my day. In particualr, I'd like to say thank you to my "jisbon pal" jisbon4ver, who reds many of my things, always leave a review, write amazing things and inspires even few of my works!

A/n:This one will have almost anything in common with the original Dickens story, and again, if you never read the original Christmas carol, do it, you'll not regret it!

* * *

ACT SIX OR THE END OF IT

_When the Ghost releases his grip on him, Jane suddenly jolts awake, and _f_inds himself in his bed yet again, covered in sweat, his breathing erratic, his pupils dilated, but him mind and hear as clear as never before… _

The first thing he does, it's checking the time and the date through his alarm clock, and scared the day, and the chance to make up for his mistakes, could have passed. He doesn't want to go through that again. He doesn't want for Lisbon to go through what he saw, and he has every intentions of doing everything in his power to avoid her, their, tragic fate. He has the power of changing both their lives, now he knows it, and if there's something that can be said about him it's that he is very perseverant in what he does, was it lying and manipulating or, like in this case, his life's new obsession, his ultimate mission.

_Making Lisbon happy, helping her, saving her soul a bit every day, it's his new mission, his ultimate goal in existence, the only way to save himself again, to avoid his father's sordid destiny._

The day he realized how deep his feelings for Lisbon were was the day she had been framed for murder, and there was nothing about happiness in that day. He didn't felt relief in admitting what part of him already knew, even back then. The only thing he felt was fear and the only thing he did for a long time was denying the existence of said emotions, buried deep within his very soul.

Not even trying to date someone else (Kristina) worked. He still remembers clearly running (escaping) into the bathroom, looking at his reflection in the mirror, and playing with his ring, thinking about how wrong was even only the mere thought of removing it for that charlatan.

_He'd remove it for Teresa in an instant, if only she'd ask him to. _He is sure of it, like he is sure she'll never ask him to. She'd never ask him to let it go completely, to forget, not even were they dating. She is not that kind of person. She is not a charlatan like Kristina, she is a beautiful soul, the brightest light he has ever seen, a light shining in front of everyone she meets to show them their way. She is the guiding light in his storming sea, she is a healer. She is the only reason he is still alive, because she always saves him, she saves him from the evil of the world and she saves him from his own darkness.

It's kind of ironic now, that he thinks about it, how right she has always been. She has always told him she was the one in control of "their situation". She has always told him she was going to stop him from doing something that stupid like killing Red John. She has always told him she wasn't going to allow him to, and even if he kept telling her the contrary, it comes out she was right, and that he was wrong.

It's really ironic, now that he thinks about it. He has told her he was going to always save her, but it's quite the contrary. He is the one who is going to save her- and saving himself in the process.

He finally releases the breath he was too aware he was taking, smiling a bit, and crying tears of happiness as he thinks of the gift his father left him. It seems that the situation is getting more ironic by the minute, because his father never left him anything if not his conning abilities when alive, and now that he is that sort of afterlife, he has given him the best gift a father could provide a son with.

_Alexander Jane has provided his son of a second shot at life- and love._

"I will never forget my past, my present and my future, dad, but I'll no longer allow someone else's actions to contaminate the good memories I have of what it once was… nor I'll allow his shadow to contaminate my present and my future. The three spirits and their lesson will never leave my heart, dad. I swear to God and on Christmas, I'll be the man I now know I can be, I'll the man Teresa deserves me to be, the man she needs me to be. I may not be worth her yet, but I'll eventually be, you have my word!"

His voice is low, almost broken, so much Jane has cried in the last few hours, during the unusual course of events, and he is pretty sure Lisbon, Teresa, will notice it looking into his eyes, still red and puffy for the tears, tears cried not only for himself, but for her. He has never thought about it, never really thought about the fact that his actions, his desire for vengeance, will have such repercussions on her. He knows he has always endangered her carrier, but her life, in such a way?

He has never really thought that his "plan" would, eventually, break her, destroy her, kill her, but now he knows what the Ghost of the Christmas Future, the reaper, showed him. He knows his end will eventually be hers as well, and there's no way he is going to allow that.

After all, hasn't he promised Lisbon to always save her, of not hurting her, of always being there for her? Maybe it's time he starts to follow his own advice, and keeps up to his word…

His hands are busy in removing what his nigh clothes, and he is already searching for something to wear, and something different from his trademark 3 pieces. Just for once, though, just for today, and just for Lisbon.

_One change at time_ he thinks with a smile and tears of happiness.

"Do I know what to do? I'm not sure I know what to do!" he says the words aloud, laughing and crying in the same breath, finally managing to put on a pair of grey stockings while emptying his drawers in search of a sweater he knows he has somewhere there- it's plain grey, he knows it's not such a change, but it goes along very well with the black, grey stripped shirt he knows Lisbon loves so much-the one she can't stop starring at when he wears it. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel; I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man…, and… I know what to do, but… am I still in time?" completely clothed, with a pair of dark jeans and running shoes (_ok,_ _Maybe I'm more into this "let's change" kind of scenario more than I care to admit…) _he paces for the whole house, his eyes ending always on the small details that remind him of the previous night and its events…

"That' the door by Dad's ghost entered. There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat. There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits. It's all right; it's all true, it all happened… and if I'm lucky enough, I'll be able to change the future and save Lisbon and myself!"

He laughs again, an honest to God laughter, and it's so weird, because for a man who has been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh…. And the only thing Patrick Jane can think of it's how right it feel to laugh again, to laugh, to love and too live again… suddenly, he feels like this is just the first of a long, long line of brilliant laughs to come!

With his heart exploding in his chest, he runs to the window, opening it and putting out his head: there's no fog, no mist, it's clear, bright, and jovial. The sunlight shines on his skin like ray made of pure gold, the whole sky is like heaven, and the air is sweet and fresh. And the bells… he has probably never been so happy to hear the sound of the bells. The only word to describe it is glorious-the same he has always used to describe Lisbon, only with himself, thought.

He runs back inside, not really knowing what to do what he really would like to do. He paces again the room, and finds his mobile, turning it off with the mere objective of checking the time and day. He has spent so long with the Ghosts, wondering through time and space, that he really doesn't know any longer what day or time it's supposed to be.

"It's Christmas Day!" he says to himself happy like a child in candy land "I haven't missed it! The Spirits have done it all in one night.… They can do anything they like, of course they can! I'm still in time to be with Teresa!" When he calls her with her given name, his heart explodes with Joy, realizing maybe just now what he should have seen coming a long time ago.

He runs to his car, driving as fast as he can, faster than usual, even, to be with her, at her side.

Because he wants to be at home, and the only home he knows, he understands it now, it's where Teresa Lisbon is. She has him, body and soul, and she hasn't seen this one coming. He knows he has broken her heart, mocking her because she tried her best to remember the good Christmases of her life instead of the ones she had after she turned 12. He hasn't understood it until the ghosts showed him what he probably knew all along, deep down, but never dared to admit, for fear of rejection and of losing her.

Now, he knows better. Now he knows that he'll lose her if he'll not do something about it, of he'll not tell her the truth, the whole truth. He should have never lied to her in the first place. When she asked him if Red John had said something, he should have said of the poem, and how he had quoted what he and Kristina had said while they were having dinner. He should have said of the unregistered gun he was secretly keeping in the attic. He should have said of what Todd told him, how he quoted Red John's words. He should tell her of how he has changed his mind, and he'll never kill him, not if will mean their end, figuratively speaking or literally.

He should have and he still should, he knows he it, but he hopes he'll have the time to do it, because, as important as all these facts may be, there's something that's more important than everything else, something he should have done a long time ago, something he has decided it will be his new mission in life.

He has promised to always save her. He has promised to never hurt her. He has promised to be there for her, no matter what. And now, pacing in front of her doorstep, he has decided that he'll always make her happy, no matter what. He'll make her smile, and he'll be the only one who will make her smile.

"Lisbon!" he cries out with all his energy, shouting, as, after almost fifteen minutes, at the time of half past six, he finally finds the courage to call for her.

"What the hell is going on!" the door is now wide open, and Lisbon is standing there, in front of him, with furious eyes (so much for Christmas), as grumpy as never before, probably because she didn't have the time to take her double dose of morning caffeine. She looks wild, with semi-closed dark green eyes and dark curls that are going everywhere but where she wants them. And she is just wearing a thin Christmas themed robe over one of her Jersey, the Chicago bull's one. "Jane, I should have seen that coming. Only you can show up at half past six on Christmas Day, when even the kids are still asleep."

He looks at her, grinning, with tears in his eyes, as he doesn't do as he'd like, holds her, hugging her, no, he simply puts his hands on her forearms and keeps them there, looking at her crying, drinking in the sight of her, of Teresa, alive, in his arms (kind of).

"I've come to lunch, if the offer still stands" he says seriously, almost begging, with questioning eyes, looking into Lisbon's orbs, like they were the most beautiful thing in the whole world, and for him, they were, always have, always will. "Unfortunately, I have no gifts, there's just me."

When he says this words with a smile that reaches his eyes, Lisbon can't take it any longer, and, her arms around his neck, she throws herself at him, in tears, talking between sobs, as Jane, crying as well, breathing in her cinnamon scent, draws invisible patterns on her back. "All I wanted for Christmas was you, Patrick"

At the mere mention of his given name, Jane tightens the grip on her, and, if his tears were previously silent, as he holds Lisbon like for dear life, he sobs just like her, wishing to never let it go of her.

"Ehy, Tess, who was at the door, why aren't you…" Carol Lisbon emerges from the doorway, and her casual talk ends as she sees first the two of them holding each other, and then Teresa physically "alienating" herself from the grip of the Cheshire-cat grinning Jane "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I think I'll come back inside, so that you could continue whatever you were going to continue and…"

"NO! It's not how it seems!" Teresa says, panicking a bit, red as a tomato "Carol, this is my team's consultant and friend, Patrick Jane"

"OH MY GOD, YOU ARE THE PATRICK JANE! JIM, ANDY, TOMMY! YOU HAVE TO MEET HIM! THERE'S PATRICK JANE AND HE IS REAL AND HE IS JUST AS HANDSOME AS I THOUGHT HE WAS! I TOLD YOU THEY HAD SOMETHING GOING ON BUT YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME! AND NOW HE IS HERE! WHAT ARE WAITING FOR! LET'S COME HERE! OH MY GOD, THEY ARE SO CUTE TOGETHER, AND SHE TOLD HIM THE NICEST THINGS!" She screams in enthusiasm as she comes back into the house, running from room to room to provide the new gossip, as Teresa, still on her patio, doesn't know if turning redder of getting as pale as a ghost, and is still lost in her track, unable to breath, while Jane, grinning more and more, smiling, nuzzles her neck while putting a protective arm around her shoulders, and softly kisses her hair, while Teresa decides that yes, she'll turn as red as never before. But, still, she enjoys this display of affection from Jane, because it does feel sincere, and besides… maybe it was just a kiss on the hair, but she could feel him smiling on her scalp, she can still feel the point burning, like on fire.

"Your sister-in-law just called me handsome, Teresa. Aren't you jealous?" he laughs, light as never before, still holding her securely.

"My sister-in-law Carol is pregnant, Jane, she could find Frankenstein's monster fascinating, so, don't patting yourself on the shoulders just because she said you are handsome." She stops to laugh along him, and turns in his embrace, her arms again around his neck, her hands busy feeling his features and she is suddenly serious, but, so sweet, that he feels like he could melt into her embrace right there and then. "Patrick, what are you doing here?"

"You said I shouldn't be alone on Christmas day, and I should spend it with the people I care about. And you were right. That's why I'm here, where I want to be." He almost whispers, his breath hot on her skin, still holding each other.

"Really?" she still asks, she needs to know, to be sure, because… because she cares too much about him, and she couldn't stand being played by him, being fooled by him, not by Patrick, not by the man who fills her heart with so much different emotions.

He nods, before going on and ending his speech. "Yes, but, there's something you were wrong about. When you said you wanted us to be friends… and to behave like friends… I thought about it, and I realized I don't want it, I don't' want us to be friends." He looks at her, shifting in his arms, becoming tense, he can sees the tears, no longer of happiness, but of sadness, of desperation.

_She hasn't understood the meaning of his words._

So, to keep her there, with him, in his arms, in that moment, he does the only thing he can think of- he kisses her.

His hands are still on her forearms, hers still on his face. Their eyes are closed, their breathings are erratic, and their pulse couldn't even be measured, so fast it is, as they live, for the first time, the sensation of lips on lips, their lips on each other's lips, slow, sweet, sensual and deep… like an ocean of love, all around them, all inside them, one time, two times, and then, until they are joined outside the door by her family, and just then they stop, to look at each other, to stare at each other with bright eyes and great smiles. And even then, they seal, before entering in the building holding hands, the new beginning with a last kiss, a small peck on the lips that says everything there's need to say about what happened and what will happen between them.

And in the years to come, Patrick Jane will keep all his promises, do and infinitely more. He'll become an even better friend to the Team and Teresa in particular, with whom he'll eventually share his own life and the ones of the children who'll join them in the voyage that's life. He'll become a brother to Andrew, James and Thomas in particular, helping them and being there for their children like they'll be his owns. He'll became a better man, a good man, the man he has always knew he could be but never had enough courage to change into him.

Some people will laugh to see the alteration in him, but he'll leave them laugh, because his own heart will laugh, and that was quite enough for him, and he'll not have further intercourse with Spirits, he'll never see his father again, but he'll live never forget them, always keeping the promises he made them, and their lessons, inside him, and it will be said of him that he knows how to keep Christmas well and the whole year.

And, as he tells Teresa still holding her, while drinking cider, with Tommy remarking that he knew that had to be something between them otherwise he'd not been invited, "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and God bless us, every one!"

THE END


End file.
